Hello Everyone,

I know many have been concerned of my health, and thank you so much for the caring messages, some of which I have just read. Means a ton. Before I reply to everyone’s comments and/or questions directly I wanted to share what happened so I didn’t have to repeat myself as much has taken place over a very short period of time. The most important detail being I am still here.

So, lets get started. This is long so please bear with me. As you all know, I have been dealing with depression and urges of suicide. And came close twice in one week. Scared the living hell out of me how out of control my bipolar was at the time.

When this all came to a head was Saturday June 1st 2013 when I had my therapist appointment. Yea, it’s cool that has a therapist who works weekends. Anyway I shared about the bad depression. About how not having my pain meds for three days when my doctor’s nurse made a mistake on my refill was added to it how I felt. Shared about having to leave the house the last few days to pay bills and running into ambulances all over town. Each one triggering flashbacks of being 16, having them come to the house, put me in restraints and take me to the hospital.

It was like I was 16 again with my mom using the hospital growing up to punish me all over again, when she used to lie to the hospital saying I was suicidal so they would take me for three days. I am so tired of reliving that. I am dealing with a surge of nightmares and flashbacks aside from ambulance induced so bad my stomach is sick. When I have the flashbacks my stomach physically hurts. I feel the emotions and for some reason it causes my upper stomach area to hurt so bad. I don’t know why that happens in response to flashbacks, but it does.

Then I shared about for three days leading up to the Saturday therapist appointment that my ghost doing increasingly more crap including being basically raped the last 3 nights in a row. And I can’t do a darn thing about it because I can’t physically touch him!

For anyone reading who isn’t aware of the whole ghost situation I am in, without going into huge detail, I moved into a new place in August 2010 and began being visited by a spirit. Not uncommon for me, happened all through my childhood. But a year into him being here, he began touching me sexually. He was gay in his last life and this used to be his apartment in 1947. He used to invite his gay lover here and they would make love. He stayed because some of his happiest memories are of making love here.

With me being male, he says he likes me and sees me as his boyfriend, despite me telling him I’m not gay and can’t have a relationship like that with a spirit even if I WAS gay. But he won’t stop. He just keeps doing stuff. When I am not so depressed I can more or less cope with the touching. But right then it’s just too much on top of what I was already dealing with. And it’s not exactly something I can share about to say my medical doctor as spirits are often not seen as “real”. So people would assume it’s a product of mental illness.

So anyway, I told my therapist that the suicidal thoughts are no longer just thoughts. The urges to act isn’t so easy to resist anymore. Having the pain meds again helps the pain back under control. But the three days without took so much energy out of me that I normally have to resist the urges. I don’t have anything left Sharing this, I didn’t get the response I had expected and prepared myself to hear. She tells me ‘Oh, well your not going to do it, your alright”.

SERIOUSLY? After seeing her for 4 years, herself being present at the overdose in 2010, you would think she would know I am fully capable of following a urge through when pushed to the wall emotionally. So the comment surprised me. We ended the session not long after with her telling me “see you Tuesday”, referring to the Buddhist chanting group her and her husband go to that they often invite me to. I go when I am feeling up to it.

Thinking back now, I don’t think I expressed clearly enough how I was feeling. Have to work on that next time. Or discuss a special word or something that me and my therapist can agree on that means something like “I’m 99% ready to take my life” or something.

So anyway, I left bothered that she didn’t really hear me or take me seriously. So when I got home, my mom asked me how it went. (I rent a bedroom from her) Feeling bothered by my therapist not hearing me, I wasn’t up to putting on the happy face as always. So I told my mom what happened and how I was feeling. My mom tells me “If you were really suicidal, you would have done it when you were a kid”. What? So let me get this straight. Because past attempts failed, it some how means I am no more serious now than I was back then?

She’s like “Well, if you wanted to do it, you would choose a method you wouldn’t walk away from like driving your car off a cliff”. Well excuse me for not wanting to die of crush injuries or dying in a fiery crash. I have been through enough painful abuse in my life to go out in extreme pain too! I favor painless methods. But painless methods often have a risk of not working every time. Hence me still being here.

So anyway, I finally tell my mom of my heart problem I have been keeping to myself. She tells me “It’s nothing, your fine”. I’m sensing a pattern here. Everything I share that is wrong with me she says I am “fine” and isn’t as serious as I am making it out to be. So she tells me maybe I should invest in life insurance if I think I might die of a heart related death.

So I try to push how I am feeling again, waste of time. I tell her “Life insurance doesn’t cover suicide”. She comes back with “Well then you should start saving up for your casket because I am not paying for it!”. Gee, really feeling the love. Thanks a lot.

I mean, who tells their kid to pay for their casket because their mom doesn’t want to be burdened with having to pay for it? Last time I was suicidal in August 2010, she told me to kill myself in my car instead of my room because she didn’t want my spirit hanging around once I was dead. As a teen when I was suicidal, she would tell me “Knives are in the kitchen, go for it!”. She’s just VERY cold.

So Saturday night turns into early Sunday morning. The urges become unbearable and I overdosed on some pills. I took them and went to bed. It was so surreal. I didn’t really feel scared, sad….nothing. I just took them and went to bed totally at peace. I was content looking forward to open my eyes to find me out of this life. But instead I woke up several hours later, still alive. I didn’t take enough. Just slept for several hours.

So being so close to having died, Sunday afternoon I went to the ER that treats me with respect and explain what happened. Then things got worse, in addition to being told I was probably going to be hospitalized for trying to take my life, the hospital was more concerned with my heart. I had a blood pressure of 196/123. Over heart attack range. Complete with chest pain. So they ran a EKG.

So anyway, they were keeping watch of my blood pressure. So it was a 9 hour wait for mental health to show up. Thankfully, the nice hospital works with me. Instead of stripping me leaving me in nothing but a diaper (I’m incontinent) they let me keep my clothing. And they let me have access to my Kindle so I could use their wifi to have something to do to pass the time. And having access to the internet I could e-mail friends and let them know what’s going on.

The mental health worker talked to me for about a hour. I explained about the overdose and what has been going on. She started talking about a hospital. I told her straight up, I’m not doing a hospital stay. Especially because my area doesn’t have a psych ward of their own. So I am sent 150 miles south to Sacramento to their hospital in SacramentoCounty. Too far for friends or anyone to come visit. So while all the other patient’s get to enjoy visits from friends and family, I sit alone in my room during visiting hours. Not good for getting better.

And it’s too far for supplies to be sent cheap enough. Because most psych wards don’t have diapers, I have to make the few diapers I had last 10 days. Often having to go several hours in a wet one causing rashes. Rash cream I had plenty of, but that’s not the point. I shouldn’t have to sit in a wet diaper because my home county doesn’t want to spend the money for a hospital closer to my home. Or because most hospitals don’t want to shell out the money for diapers. So you either bring your own, or you wet yourself for all to see. Or dealing with patients who complain because you have wet the sofa seat for the third time in a week. It will make anyone’s depression worse having to deal with that.

So I told her I refused to be hospitalized. She said that’s fine anyway because I looked “fine enough” to go home. I have to admit I was shocked and relieved at the same time. I had prepared myself to be hospitalized, even if I didn’t like it, when the ER doctor said because I had tried to kill myself in the last 12 hours I was going for sure. And in just about any other county, I would have been admitted. But here in ShastaCounty, mental health won’t admit unless your practically standing there with a razor blade to your wrist. Otherwise, they kick you loose.

So the release paperwork was signed to send me home from the ER, along with my sheet of “understanding suicidal feelings” packet as if after 22 years of this I don’t fully understand all facets of being suicidal. The nurse comes in and asks if I felt better. Still not wanting to put on a happy face I was dead honest. I told him no, I felt exactly the same. He asked if I thought I would feel safe at home. I said, I doubt it, but I guess I will take the risk, because the mental health worker didn’t blink a eye when filling out the discharge paperwork. So the nurse asks “How can she send you home still feeling suicidal?”. I told him that it happens ALL THE TIME. So Sunday 10am I was discharged and went home.

So two days go by with the bottle of pills sitting with the lid off in front of my computer monitor. Yea, I was still so suicidal I was considering trying again. I was seriously hurting. But things came to a head on Wednesday June 5th when my friend Tabitha texted back to my reply that I was ending my life. She ended up coming over in person. If I had to guess, she was maybe a hour or two in time. I was very close to doing it again.

She decided that since I had a fear of hospitals, she would go with me to Mercy Medical to be seen for wanting to overdose again. So we went down there. We arrived around 6pm to the hospital. My blood pressure was higher than before at 204/112. My highest in my life. So they ran another EKG. But that was about as far as we got. I stayed out in the waiting room lobby till 4:30am the following morning not getting any further. So I went home.

The next morning Tabitha suggested I see mental health directly. So at 10am on Thursday June 6th I arrived at mental health and asked to be seen for being suicidal. That was a nightmare in the making. I talked to the crisis worker and explained my situation. He took out a 5150 involuntary hold form and began filling it out. He said he was transferring me to Mercy Medical ER where I would wait for mental health evaluation there. Why yet another eval was needed after talking to this man I don’t know.

What scared the hell out of me is when he said a ambulance would be there shortly to take me to the ER. My heart began pounding while flashbacks of being 16, put in restraints in the ambulance and taken to the psych ward began to play over and over while security guards made sure I didn’t leave. Then it pulled in. It was like going back in time watching the ambulance pull up, two EMT’s step out and bring the bed up and over to me. It was a living nightmare. But I was paralyzed in fear. I couldn’t move.

When told to get on the bed I refused. I told the EMT’s and the worker I would die before getting on that bed. They threatened to call the cops if I didn’t. So I told them to call the police then. I would much rather go to the ER in a police car than in a ambulance in restraints like I did as a teen. No way! So till the police arrived I asked them to please get the stretcher away from me.

The police finally arrived and placed me in handcuffs. But on the way out to the car the one cop shares that he caught my show I did for Taboo and asked if I still do it. So I confirmed I did and we didn’t say much more till we arrived at the ER.

We got to the ER around 11am and was sat in a chair in the ER hallway till a little after 1am. At 11am I was finally given a hospital bed to wait in. They wanted to give me a room, but the room open was a exact layout of the solitary room I was put in overnight in the dark when I was 16, as well as the same room at 16 when my spinal injury happened. So I refused. They let me keep the bed in the hallway.

Around 7pm I had began self injuring during bathroom breaks. And because the hospital refused to give me pain meds, I had to take the doses I had on me while in the ER bathroom without the guard knowing. I hated having to do that, but I can’t take the pain of going without my pain medication.

At 7:45pm Thursday night the mental health guy finally arrived. He was a real jerk. He was asking questions and I was answering them the best I could. But apparently it wasn’t to his satisfaction because when he asked me how bad I wanted to die I said pretty bad, but he got upset and wanted it on a 1-10 scale. Well EXCUSE ME! So yea, we didn’t get along. He finally said “I have to call the doctor” and walked away.

About 10 minutes later he comes up to me while I am sitting back on the hospital bed and says so loud my friend on the phone could hear “I’m extending your on a 5150 hold, you will remain here till a bed is found in a psychiatric hospital and I don’t know how long or where that will be”. All rude like. And before I can say anything he storms out of the door.

Like….what the hell? I didn’t need his attitude. But it’s the rare time any such rude behavior or comments have been heard by anyone beside me. So it was nice in part to have my friend over hear the attitude, now they know it really DOES happen to me.

So I continued to wait in the ER for a bed to open up. About 30 minutes later my friend Tabitha comes into the ER. The friend who stopped me from taking the pills for the second attempt that week. Anyway, she got us some dinner and came back to the ER and we had dinner. It was nice to have her there for support. Online support is great, but sometimes you just need a hug and a cyber hug just won’t due.

By noon on Thursday another mental health worker came and explained they were having a hard time finding me a hospital bed. She said there is only one psychiatric hospital that deals with patients who need their diapers changed (me being incontinent and all). That explains things. So I explained to her that I can change myself just fine. That changes everything, now I can go to 5 other hospitals if they have beds.

And by 9pm that night one had been found in Sacramento, one I went to a year ago during a previous bipolar low called “Sierra Vista”. I did NOT want to go there. So I called the company RestPadd in Redding directly, explaining that I had been abused there but they said it couldn’t be changed and I would be going rather I wanted to or not.

I was put in the mental health car which is a old police car complete with the “cage” in the back. That metal grill separating the front from the back seat and was driven to the hospital in Sacramento. We arrived at Sierra Vista Hospital at 11pm. But I couldn’t get out of the car. I was too afraid of being hurt.

The driver goes to talk to the intake lady who thinks I can’t hear her and says “Let’s coax him out of the car, once he’s inside we have staff who can put hands on him”. Now I REALLY wasn’t getting out of the car! So then she comes over to the car thinking I have not heard anything and tells me how I will be fine, how no one wants to hurt me or touch me. Bull!! I heard what she said.

So she said if I didn’t get out of the car, she was going to call the police. I told her “Call the police” and I closed the car door myself! The intake nurse had the driver lock me in the car while they called Sacramento Police to get me out of the car. Fine by me, a little more time I wasn’t having “hands” put on me. I mean, what would you have done hearing her say that? Problem was, it was 103 out that day and we sat two hours with me in the back and no AC. I was covered in sweat by the time the police finally arrived 2 hours later.

I hear the intake nurse tell the police that if they can get me in the hospital they have staff to put hands on me, but until I am in the building they can’t touch me and want to know if the police could use show of force to get me out of the car. Lady must have thought I was deaf. I heard every darn word.

So the police spend a hour trying to tell me how safe I am going to be which progresses to telling me he has several painful ways to get me out of the car unless I get out myself. How being yanked out and to the pavement would hurt. Well excuse me for being afraid. I had good reason to be afraid. But we made a deal. If I went in, the cop would stay until I was in the back and if any of the staff hurt me, he would arrest them on the spot. Yea, I knew it was bull **** too.

I go into the hospital lobby and sit in a chair just inside their door and the cop brings me a cup of water. I was still very much afraid shaking. It was then the cop tells the nurse he’s leaving. Suddenly my “protection” is pulling away.

After the police are out of sight the charge nurse tells me “You have 5 minutes to comply or we have staff to put hand on you!”. I tried, oh god did I try to get past my fear and move my legs but I couldn’t. I was petrified. That’s when the charge nurse says “Fine!”. 4 big male staff surround the chair I am sitting in. My heart pounding in my chest. Then suddenly they all grab for my arms. At this point I begin to fight with all my might, but I can’t anymore. I couldn’t put up any better fight than if these guys were restraining a 10 year old. I was powerless against them.

They took my wrist, twisted it, pulled my arms behind my back and began forcing me down the hallway the whole time I am in pain from how they are grabbing me. But now because they are moving me at almost running speed my back is screaming in pain. But I feared tripping because I didn’t want to face plant with 4 big guys on top of me, so I used all my strength to run.

¾ the way down the hall I turn for the day room and he says “Oh no, YOUR going to solitary”. The fight in me had returned. With it being night, and fearing being locked in solitary overnight in the dark like I was when I was 16, I had a rush of pure adrenaline. I began pushing backward with all my strength and tensing up for any amount of control to avoid going into that solitary room. But even with the extra adrenaline, it still wasn’t enough to match their strength.

But just as the nurse opened the nursing station door toward the solitary room, thank my Angels, the staff in charge turned me back for the day room and forced me into a seat in the day room and says “Don’t you move!” and let me go. I was in horrible pain, heart pounding and couldn’t stop my body from shaking. So much for “no one is going to hurt you”!!. This was why I didn’t want to get out of the darn car!

Once on the psych unit things calmed some for a minute. We went through my things for what I could have and not have. Once that was done they read about me not being able to be in a room without the light on 24/7, caused from that night when I was 16 in the dark solitary room overnight. So they said I would need my own room as the light would disturb a room mate. So they said “For tonight, you will sleep in the solitary room when you get tired”.

Yea, I didn’t “get” tired. I stayed up all night long just to not go into that room. I was afraid of falling asleep and being told to go to the room and go to bed. Or reaching some time of the night and being told to go to the room. So any time I nodded off I made it look like I was resting my head. That is when I wasn’t too afraid to close my eyes. Just thinking of going to the room kept me up much of the night. So yea.

The next morning I was told I got room 306 on C Unit but had a roommate. Thankfully he didn’t mind the light on all night. He was very cool about it. So was grateful to have him for a room mate. For the next 36 hours staff got concerned because I wasn’t eating. Sorry, hard to eat when your afraid.

One comfort this time was I brought my stuffed puppy dog named “Puppy” who I role play with. The first time in 22 years I have EVER brought ANYTHING role playing related to a hospital. I didn’t want anything of the hospital associated with my role playing. But seems it was ok. Then of course I had my two friends Tabitha and Robert/Bob calling a few times a day to talk with me and keep me calm. That helped a whole hell of a lot.

Another thing was, I was told once I got inside, my “whole” pain meds would be ready. Only 1/4th of them were ready. And that stayed the same for 1 ½ days till the doctor finally adjusted it. Even then, they only would give me ¾ of my pain medications that I would take if I was home.

At 8:45am Saturday June 8th and day one in the hospital, I saw the medical doctor. He did the normal medical exams and such. Then I went to my room and laid down. At 10:15am I met with my psychiatrist. I liked him. He got all my meds straight and was going to check with my pharmacy before I could get the methadone. Till then he cleared me for Norco (about the same as two vicodine). Anyway, also starting that night he started me on my two soon to be permanent meds which are Lexapro 5mg and Invega 3mg.

The psychiatrist also authorized me for their “red band” program. Basically any patients with a red band could leave the unit to visit the hospital dining room and have access to the vending machines as long as family leaves money for them. Thankfully I came into the hospital with some money so I could use the program and used the red band for lunch that day and got a soda and a candy bar. Luck had it though, I got the candy bar for free because when I went to use the machine the credit read “One dollar remaining”. No one was around to claim it. So that was cool.

So around 4pm 4 staff including a supervisor came in asking why I was claiming abuse by staff. So I explained what happened. Sadly I lacked the physical proof. I only had one bruise about the size of a quarter on my right arm between my shoulder and elbow. I couldn’t prove that the muscles in both arms had been pulled, or the further damaged to my back to being manhandled like that.

All I know is my back hurts worse than before, and the pain meds don’t take the pain back down to manageable right now. I am hoping the pain goes back down with time. I also explained how everything was caught on their camera’s in the lobby, ward C hallway and ward C day room. At first they couldn’t find any marks. But during a self exam I discovered the mark and they had me go to the medical exam room and came in with a camera and took a picture of it.

But on my way to my room I hear one of the two staff speaking with another about the incident and overhear “I’m not worried about anything” while looking at me. Yea, when you have other’s to vouch for you, what patient could win such a case of abuse? I know I won’t. But it was reported anyway.

By 8pm on June 8th the sun was going down which is the worst time of night for me with depression and the urge to self injure was getting rough. But I was still resisting the urge.

By 10pm that night I needed my first change at the psych ward. I love the diapers I use, they last a long time. And since I have a pretty good amount of control and only had a few accidents per day I can make a diaper last. I had to make each one last because I only had about 15 with me and the hospital didn’t have any in my size. So I had to make each diaper last as long as I could. Being in a hospital 150 miles from home, I was too far for anyone to bring me any more. And by 10pm I needed a new one as well as my dose of my two new psych meds.

As for why I share about this change is just a example to others that came later and how the situation is treated there. So I got my supplies from the nursing station but instead of giving me them wrapped in a towel or a bag or something for privacy I had to carry everything out in the open for everyone to see. It’s like gee, thanks for letting everyone know I am incontinent! But each change meant a walk down the hall with my supplies. What happened to someone’s privacy?

Around 2am on Sunday June 9th I woke from having a nightmare and several flashbacks of my two weeks stay at Van Nuys Psych. I had been fighting the urge to SI, but I gave in. I self injured three different times overnight. Though I was feeling a bit better when the sun finally came up. Just something about the night that makes me feel so darn bad and brings up memories of the stay when I was 16 at Van Nuys. And maybe I just answered my own question there. But yea.

About 8am I met with my psychiatrist on the medications. I told him they actually were doing well. No major side effects. So he said if they work out, he might discharge me when my 72 hour hold is done. I also explained why I self injured that early morning and told him that it happens in such stressful situations and that once I am home I should be able to stop again like last time. He said he wasn’t worried about that and knew it was only to cope and not to end my life.

At 9am I went to get my medication and finally was explained how they had it. The Norco was every 6 hours, but if I wanted the methadone and flexiril I had to come up to the window and ask for it but they had to be 1 hour apart. Stupid as when I’m home I take them all together as I am supposed to. Why they separate them in the hospital I don’t know. But at least now I knew how their system worked.

Finally at 11:45am that morning I was beginning to be hungry. So I asked for some milk and crackers. When she returned to my room with them, she sat to talk to me for a few minutes. It was then that she noticed my cuts. Even I didn’t realize how bad they were. She wanted to know how I did it. I so should have kept my mouth shut. Nope, freaking honest Stanley. DOPE!!! (as Homer Simpson would say)

I was desperate to self injury and used a paper product. I am sorry for those wanting to know exactly what, but I only contribute to my own SI, sorry. Anyway, the nurse was shocked paper could be used to self injure as deep as I did. But she then said paper had to be added to the list of contraband. Leave it to me to get paper contraband. The type of paper I was using ended up not just cutting, but was actually removing skin. I will have 4 scars because of it. It was dark and I just couldn’t see what I was doing. Do I regret it? You bet. But it felt good at the time. But I paid for it later.

So in the end they took anything paper related out of my room. My books I brought to keep myself busy, paper cups, my patients rights handbook, my comb….everything but my clothes and my stuffed dog. Now I didn’t have my books to occupy my mind or my journal I was doing too. All of it was taken and my cuts were photographed.

Then they did a second strip search to make sure they got everything. And then from then on I was on a check every 10 minutes, and on top of that every night starting from sun down that night and from sun down to sun up every night I was there I would have to have a 1 on 1 staff member sitting in my door way dedicated to watching just me to make sure I didn’t self injure anymore. It totally SUCKED!!!

So around 4pm that evening one of the staff was checking on me was one of the ones involved in hurting me. He was explaining how they were afraid of me. ME? There was 10 of them, and only one of me. And it only took 4 of them (and way less really) to grab me and he’s claiming they were afraid of me? Who attacked who? And I told him “Even when in the car I said several times how I was terrified of you guys hurting me”.

So then he was saying sorry for the force used. He said many of the staff go over board and that the charge nurse over night is old school and has no patients for anything which is why she only gave me 5 minutes to over come my fear before giving the order to go hands on. Like all this excuses what was done to me or his part in, ending with the whole “I was just doing my job” line.

Another issue on the ward I had was that from the payphone you can clearly see through the bullet proof glass of the nurses station window and see the solitary room (they call it “Seclusion Room”) door with the two barrel locks that keep the door securely closed. It was highly triggering making me have flashbacks of Van Nuys Psych. So when on the phone I often closed my eyes or turned to face the phone. Didn’t help the phone cord was only all of 5 inches long. So you had to stand weird to even use it which was hurting my back so I could only talk for a little while at a time.

So at sun down the nurse came in and again I made the mistake of sharing that I was having urges to self injure. That’s when she noticed other marks. Times I didn’t say anything. So she went to get the camera to document it. So thinking about my facebook account I was joking saying “Why don’t you just download my picture from online”.

That’s when the other nurse let out the secret the staff had been keeping since day one. They knew who I was, the guy who went on TV about his role playing. She told the other nurse “Yea, he’s all over youtube”. They were asking about if I really had a adult size crib and all that. So yea, I really have one.

I missed sleeping in my crib while at the hospital actually. It was weird sleeping in a regular old bed after spending so many years sleeping in a crib. I kept feeling like I was going to fall out of bed or something. Or like I wasn’t secure/safe. It was a weird feeling. But that chat was VERY short with shift change and all. The next staff member didn’t even talk to me. Just sat and watched to make sure I didn’t self injure.

During the next morning of Monday June 10, when I finally did get some sleep, around 3am the charge nurse woke me up telling me to get my arms out from under the blanket. It was cold. But she told me I had to keep my arms out so they could make sure I wasn’t cutting. So my arms were freezing!

The rest of the morning went uneventful till around 11am when I got a call from John, my mom’s ex boyfriend saying my mom was in the hospital. She had a stroke on the way home from work. She couldn’t move her left arm. So she had to go to the hospital. I won’t go into tons of detail, but it wasn’t horribly serious. They wanted to keep her in the hospital for 14-48 hours. But by that afternoon when I talked to her in the hospital she was able to talk and John said she was able to move her arm, just wasn’t able to bear much weight. So she got off real lucky in terms of health. But she might lose her job due to the stroke as she’s a driver.

John was concerned it would get me upset. But I am not one to get upset very easy. And with being a walk-in and all, I don’t have a huge attachment to my mom anyway. I was concerned for her health as I would be for anyone who is sick or ill. But I wasn’t like “Oh my god, what am I going to do……”. But I just found my reaction personally interesting. So yea, that happened. And because I don’t mention it later, she was released the same afternoon when I was! Interesting the timing.

So the rest of the evening was a bit nutty. Two patients continued to “go off”. One had severe anger problems and was angry and yelling at either staff or patients and was put in the solitary a few times while I was there which was triggering. So when it happened I tried to distance myself.

Similar with the other patient who cried at the drop of a hat. Not making fun at all, so please don’t think that anyone reading this. I just mean she was very emotional. Almost any situation brought her to tears. And not just tears, but when she would cry she would cry VERY loudly.

But not just our unit was having issues, three other units were having issues that day as well. As soon as one fight or problem was resolved, another would happen. I found it interesting that they had two units for kids age 18 and under. Not one, but two wards of Indigo’s. That can be some highly volatile energy in close quarters. No wonder so many fights happened over there.

Anyway, the unit I was on, Unit C was the very first psych ward I have been on that actually gave out ear plugs to the patients to drown out the screaming and yelling! Not a bad idea though. But the patients outbursts made it difficult for me to be there at times being empathic and all. Not just for those going off, but as those who empathic know, powerful feelings like anger and sadness and such are very potent. But by 6pm our unit was pretty quiet. And my doctor said I would be going home for sure tomorrow.

As normal, at sun down my 1 on 1 staff brought his chair to the door way of my room and sat down. I just couldn’t sleep for some reason last night. Maybe it was because I was going home for sure. Well, I know it was because I was going home. But the night was made longer because I didn’t have my books to read or anything to do but sleep. But couldn’t sleep so couldn’t do that either. So just ended up tossing and turning.

The next morning, Tuesday June 11th was quiet at first. I met with my doctor who felt I was still doing well on my meds and said I was still good to leave. And that mental health would be sending a car to drive me back the 150 miles home around 2pm. Having a time helped, but still seemed like time was super slow.

Then at 11am a fight broke out between two patients. 10 staff were involved breaking them up from what I could see. Then the lady crying started. I was seriously losing it. After three days of the yelling, screaming and crying I couldn’t take it, empathically. I was being overwhelmed in emotions. Made me feel sick and lots of anxiety.

Heck, I was even tempted to “go off” just to get in solitary so it would be quiet! But not that tempted. No way did I actually want in the room. I just wanted it to be quiet. The staff ended up giving the loud ones medication to quiet them down and within a half hour it was quiet enough for me to meditate and get myself centered again.

Then at 2pm as expected my ride home arrived. Even he apparently knew who I was. I had never met him, but other drivers knew me from past trips. I didn’t find out though till later. He was a cool driver. He talked about how he sometimes takes a break when driving long distances. I could relate. He was saying yea, he had heard I had been on TV from some of the drivers in mental health. So I was sharing how I can’t stop in public places anymore because of me being so known in California. I never know when I am recognized, for the better or the worse. But yea, he was real nice.

So in the end, I got home today around 5pm and had to run and get my new prescriptions filled, but was bothered to know one of my new anidepressants wasn’t covered by my insurance and would have to wait for the psych ward doctor to call in one covered by my medical insurance. Hate to go without that one having JUST started it. But at least I have the other one. And for bad nights, he prescribed me Ativan. Something for the long dark nights to knock me out till the sun comes up. Safer than the Thorazine I was using for the same purpose in 2002.

But in driving and moving around at home I realized just how sore I am from the attack on day one of my hospital stay. It’s hard for me to carry around very heavy items or use my arm to pull on things. And my back hurts a lot still, even after three days of pretty much bed rest for the most part. Still got the bruise from being grabbed too on my right arm. But my back feels like someone is stabbing me in the back from time to time. Sucks.

But the good news is I am still here. And now I have new medication. The doctor said it turns out I am ultra sensitive to psych meds. Which is why I had so many problems in the past. So all the three new meds he started me off with the lowest possible dose, and the Ativan is even being cut in half to further lower the dose. Seems to be working though. So cross those fingers.

Well, that’s all of what happened with this last bipolar low. Again, thank you so much everyone for your support and kind words. I really am grateful to have such good friends in my life. And anyone reading this who e-mailed me, I won’t be answering any e-mail right after posting this, but if you e-mailed me I will get back to you as soon as I can. Take care everyone and I’m so sorry I worried everyone. Hopefully these new meds will make this whole mess a thing of the past. I so hope so!